Enhancement of multi-species assessment models

Project

This research activity will enhance multi-species models (improved diet selection models and recruitment models) to enable best possible projections of stock developments. This will contribute to a sustainable harvest of fish stocks inside an ecosystem approach. Not only fisheries influence fish stocks but also predation and environmental factors.

Background and Objective

The ecosystem approach to fisheries management plays an increasingly important role in the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). In contrast to traditional fisheries management, not only the influence of management decisions on target species has to be evaluated but the impact on the ecosystem as a whole. Among other things, this requires the utilisation of multi-species models capable of quantifying the interactions between fish stocks (e.g. predator-prey relationships). In addition, new management concepts have to be developed that can tackle the new challenges of an ecosystem approach. This research activity will enhance multi-species models (improved diet selection models and recruitment models) to enable best possible projections. This will contribute to a sustainable harvest of fish stocks inside an ecosystem approach. The models will be updated every year with recent data. Model results (i.e. estimates of current predation mortalities) will be made available to ICES working groups to improve the assessment of commercially important fish stocks.

Target Group

Science, ICES advice

Approach

Stomach data are used as basis for analyses on the diet selection of predators and to parameterise multi-species models. Complex feeding interactions can be qunatified with these models and management strategies can be evaluated in a multi-species context.

Our Research Questions

How important is natural mortality compared to fishing mortality?

How variable is predation mortality over time and how does fishing influence marine food webs?